Disclaimer: I don't own anything that has been copyrighted. I make no money out of this, I only entertain, or try to. I am only paid in smiles, reviews, and in people liking what I've shared.

Note: AU, may contain sues, crack, ocs, oocs, etc.

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Heaven Is But A Dream

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Chapter 4

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Most newly minted ninja were gladdened by the fact that they had finally joined the ranks they had worked their young lives for. But not one sun-kissed blonde one, no, his thoughts were on far different things, such as that he would now be able to walk about and learn more about the world without being hindered by forces that he had no control over. Though there were sure to be some obstacles, he would face them all in the pursuit of happiness.

He now lived with the knowledge that the Hokage now knew of his inability to stay dead long, and while the old man felt for the boy, he now feared him a little bit, for who in their right minds wouldn't fear something that couldn't be killed. If Naruto for some reason decided to end Konoha, there would be nothing in the world that would be able to stop him, and if somehow someone would figure out a way to kill the monster, there would be the world to pay, as the ghostly golden mist would see to the world's very final end.

There were other forces in the village that showed a greater interest in the now potential threat that they could do nothing about. Now that they knew that Naruto had this unknown and mysterious power within him, they could only speculate as to what would happen should they move against him. Counted among these people were Shimura Danzo, the one-eyed warhawk that had sought to use the blonde as a weapon once the sealing had been complete, there were also the corrupt council members that sought to use the boy to their own ends. But now none of them dared even think of going against the boy or the Hokage, lest this unknown power be used against them.

After the blonde had met with his team for the very first time, he had been summoned by the Hokage to speak about what he had learned from the village's kinjutsu scroll, while Naruto listened to the proposed restrictions, he chose not to accept them and flat out denied the Hokage's request. He knew his worth to the village, and now that the Hokage knew of his immortality, he knew how to use it to his advantage.

He became Konoha's first suicide ninja, Since he could not be killed the village could afford to send him out on suicide missions or suicide runs without a care in the world for his safety, though the village would refrain from doing that until the boy was a little older and more experience so that his exploits wouldn't bite then in the ass.

The general population of the village was not made aware of Naruto's immortality as there was no need, and the Hokage didn't want to know how the village in general would react to the monster that they had been abusing and trying to get rid off actually being unkillable. Would they continue to try and find more creative ways to end his life or would they cower in fear of him and expect to die any day now once they realize that had Naruto been a real demon then their deaths truly were eminent.

The blonde was placed on Team 7, a genin cell which was lead by Hatake Kakashi, the cyclops with a famously hidden sharingan eye, who was informed of Naruto's immortality. The man was surprised at first and chalked the immortality as a side effect of being the host of the Kyuubi, not that he knew much about jinchuuriki not having been one but only hearing about them as well as hearing that the hosts generally gained something from the beast they held within them.

While he knew he owed his sensei something, he felt that he owed his Uchiha of a teammate more, and with the excuse of the blonde being immortal, he could now focus more on the Uchiha that had been placed on his team along with the top scorer among the kunoichi of their class on his team. It was favoritism in a way, but since he had a student that could simply go into a whole bandit camp filled with S-class nuke-nin without the threat of death looming over his head, he didn't think he needed to worry about training such a nin.

Kakashi met with his team with his same old routine of telling them that he hated them from the get-go and about the real exam as well as the chances of passing by the participants. He also suggested that they not prepare for the test, in a way, by telling them they better not eat breakfast lest they throw up. That in itself was a test, since before any strenuous activity one was expected to eat to have the energy to perform at one's best.

It seemed that only Naruto bothered to not listen to the jounin when it came to eating before the test. He ate what he could find to give him a boost in energy, not that he really needed the boost as he was always energetic and barely needed any rest anyway. Energy-wise he was an energizer bunny on steroids, jutsu-wise he had a library of stolen techniques at his beck and call, though not all of them had been mastered yet, unlike the Kage Bushin and the Mazo Shindou.

He doubted that he would need to use the Mazo Shindou as it had the potential to actually kill the jounin if he, Naruto himself, was not careful.

He had tools a plenty, some of which were stained with his own blood as they had been implements of his many deaths in the past. Ninja had a tendency of leaving their tools after being used, save for things such as swords, and other big things, but not kunai, shuriken, ninja wire, and the like. Those things tended to be left behind after being used.

With his usual suit stained with too much of his own blood, he had been forced to chose a more serious outfit. He kept some spare clothing that most people simply ignored as it didn't fit into their view of him. Such as his short sleeved black shirts, or his regular colored sets of pants ranging from forest green to dark blue, to even black. He also had a few sets of shoes and sandals of other colors aside from green, black, and blue, though they were mostly only used for when he decided that he felt different on a certain day.

Most of his extra sets of clothes had been things he had found in the trash and fixed up though.

When he was ready for the test, he went off in the direction of the training ground that his team had been told that they were to meet for the test. He didn't really sleep as he had spent the whole of the night, after getting prepared, rigging the training ground full of traps. He ate a few cups of instant ramen while his clones did the booby trapping for him, before joining in on the trapping himself.

By the time that his teammates arrived for the test, he had rigged the whole of the training ground with so many traps that he had actually lost count of the number of things he had placed in there. He promised himself that he would clean up after the exam, the plan for that being that he he would send in an army of clones to find all of the traps either by normally finding them and dismantling them or by setting them off. Either way was fine with him.

He didn't mind his teammates as they arrived, he simply sat under the shade of a tree and waited for the perpetually late sensei to arrive and begin the test. Begin the real test.

"...begin," Kakashi announced the start of the exam, two of his genin ran off to hide as expected of them. Naruto on the other hand remained out in the open.

"I was expecting more from you, Naruto," Kakashi said, "Now be a good little genin and go hide, plan, strategize.."

"How about no," Naruto stated, then ran at the jounin something the jounin only slightly expected. Blocking Naruto's first punch and delivering a blow of his own was a mistake. Naruto had no problems with getting hurt, as it simply made him stronger, or specifically made one of his attacks stronger. It was really a build up thing if he chose it to be, he stored all the pain he felt, all the damage he received, before using that suicide technique.

His teammates watched as their sensei mercilessly beat the relentless Naruto to a near pulp, the blonde not really minding or really feeling the pain after having experienced so much worse so many times in the past. The jounin wasn't going to kill him, just put him in the hospital for his supposed arrogance, and so that he would learn the difference between a genin and a jounin. But Naruto knew the difference thanks to numerous encounters.

The blonde also knew the difference between a man that feared death and a man that didn't care at all about it, or even cherished it, wanted it to happen. Wanted to escape from the perpetual nightmare that was life.

He continued to attack his jounin-sensei, he did not stop even for a moment, as he needed to wear out the silver haired man, enough that the man's senses would be dulled to the many traps lain out about the training ground. Many explosions and pointy things awaited the man and anyone dumb enough to activate one of the traps.

Naruto led the jounin to a field of potential fiery death, it was a tribute in a sense worthy of the Uchiha as Sasuke thought of it as. The whole of the seemingly empty clearing exploded into a sea of flames, the very ground itself was turned into molten mud due to the sheer heat from the flames that burned Naruto and tried to burn the jounin. Kakashi decided that it was probably not a good idea to underestimate the genin that had far too many attempts on his life to count.

He retreated as best as he could, but the explosions of fire just continued him. A hail of shuriken and kunai was his only warning that he was entering something just as dangerous as the flames.

Sasuke had set up a less complex and dangerous trap for the jounin, and it had inadvertently activated all of Naruto's metal death traps. It began to rain metal and it took all of Kakashi's well earned years of combat experience to get himself out of harm's way relatively unscathed. He even had the clarity of mind to summon up several Kage Bushin to save his other students the possible deaths they would get to experience if he left them around the training ground while Naruto went on his semi-rampage.

By saving his students, Kakashi showed Sakura and Sasuke just how weak they were in comparison to him, as well as how sane they were in comparison to Naruto who actually looked like he enjoyed getting hurt.

"I feel alive!" Naruto decided to shout, in the shinobi world it was somewhat of a common or good thing or sign that when someone was kind of insane that someone was strong, even strange or weird or simply quirky behavior was a sign of strength, so if one was insanely unafraid of death then that must translate into something too.

"Naruto! How am I supposed to test your teammates?" Kakashi called out from far enough away from the sea of flames and the heavy metal rain, the sharp things continued to pepper the ground with their sharpness, while the sea of flames continued to burn and boil to the point that it looked like some kind of uncontrollable forest fire, 'Come at me with the intent to kill..sheesh..I didn't think he'd take it that seriously!'

"Come out! Come out! Wherever you are SENSEI! I have bells to get!" Naruto screamed, making himself seem even more insane than was necessary, "Teamwork my ass! You think they'll willingly work with me now? Well? Do ya!"

"What is he talking about sensei?" Sakura whispered as she didn't want to catch the attention of the insane genin burning down and cutting up the training ground, she was more than frightened, had she known about the Kyuubi she would have already killed herself to save Naruto the trouble of ending her existence himself.

"Yeah, Kakashi-sensei...and how'd the dobe get to be this strong?" Sasuke asked, while he wanted to become strong enough to kill his brother he didn't see how being strong in the same sense as the insane genin would be good for his mental health and descendants, he found a reason to fear an idiot.

"Well...its not my place to say how he got strong...or insane..that's his story to tell...and I'm starting to think that I should have taken the Hokage seriously when he said that Naruto doesn't care about dying.." the jounin said, "He's talking about the real purpose of the exam, the real exam within the exam. Look underneath the underneath and all that. This test was supposed to test your teamwork, ever heard of a one man genin cell? No? That's cause there aren't any. Konoha is famous for its teamwork. We work as a team, as a single unit. There is no 'I' in 'team'."

"But there is an 'I' in 'insane'," Sakura decided to note.

Before their conversation could go any further an explosion shook the entire village, it came from a few meters around them. Then the searing heat of the fires that sprung up from the explosion reached them. It felt like they were being cooked alive. Something Naruto had actually experienced in his youth, not that anyone wanted to eat him, just cook him until he died.

"If he wants to die so much, then why not just end our suffering and end his life," Sasuke suggested, he was tired of all the running they ended up doing as Naruto came at the jounin with enough intent to kill to probably level the entire village. He also didn't want to die, which was a distinct possibility.

"NARUTO STOP!" the running and hiding members of Team 7 heard the yell of the Hokage himself, and Kakashi sensed that an entire platoon of Anbu were with the leader of their village as a precaution.

"Oh alright," team 7 heard Naruto say and suddenly everything vanished, the flames, the heat, and the raining metal, it was as if it had all been just an illusion, at least until they noted that all the damage remained and Kakashi's hair was a little bit on fire.

The Hokage approached Kakashi as he made himself visible, while still gripping a kunai in one hand and mourning the loss of his porn as it was one of the first things that Naruto blew up.

"Didn't I explicitly tell you not to tell Naruto to come at you with the intent to kill?" the Hokage scolded the jounin in front of his genin and the Anbu, "The next time I tell you something about Naruto, I hope that you will do it. Even if I tell you to dress in drag and woo Maito Gai," he then rounded on Naruto, "And Naruto! I told you not to do anything crazy! The payment for the damages to this training field deducted from your pay. Be more responsible will you. How do you expect to become Hokage one day if you act so irresponsible. Your team won't be the only one using this training field you know."

"Hai Hokage-sama/-jiji," Kakashi and Naruto replied, sorry for their actions, somewhat.

"Good," the Hokage said, "Now Kakashi pass your team, so that we can all move on with our lives and Naruto can clean up whatever else he has laying around the training ground."

"Alright," Kakashi said and faced the genin, "I don't really trust any of you yet, or feel that any of you really have what it takes to become true assets to the village, but I'll pass you. So congratulations, you are now official genin of Konoha, wear your forehead protectors with pride. Now scram!"

Sasuke and Sakura definitely knew when they were being dismissed, while Naruto knew enough to stay behind and create an army of clones to locate and disarm all the traps that his clones had placed in the field while the Anbu watched from the background and while the Hokage made sure that he didn't pull anything funny stuff and simply decide to blow the training ground sky high since such a thing, even the plantlife could just be conveniently replaced.

'Too late,' the Sandaime couldn't help but think as he and his Anbu high tailed it out of there just before Naruto's blood and guts came raining down on them from afar and before the mushroom cloud became visible to the entire nation.

The Hokage ended up vowing to kill the Yondaime Hokage once they saw each other again. No matter how impossible it would be, he would find a way to kill the blue eyed blonde Kage for leaving such a catastrophic legacy behind.

The likelihood of Naruto saving the world was smaller in comparison to the possibility of his destroying the world in his search for Heaven.